SADED's Journey
Deepening the Understanding of ‘Ecological Democracy':
Strivings to make it part of Common Sense
All of us live with nature and relate to it
in our everyday lives. Our daily life patterns and annual cycles, our
greetings referring to the weather, our leisure time activities, all
reveal the cultural assimilation of this relationship. Yet, in our
imagination of development and in its operationalisation, we ignored its
significance for decades so that now, large sections of the urban
middle class do not consciously relate to nature and take it into
consideration while making decisions either for themselves or for
society at large. This is the section that is most articulate on public
issues and from which our policy makers, politicians and powerful
sections tend to come, thereby influencing larger public perception.
SADED was conceived of in 2002-03 in order to address this gap in
Indian, and South Asian, public discourse including in political and
policy spheres. SADED's attempt over the past years has been to bring
the relationship of human beings with nature centre-stage in public
discourse, and therefore use of the term ‘Ecological Democracy'. While
‘Comprehensive Democracy' (Pratap et al, 2001) has been the overall
framework with which we work, the ecological dimension is foregrounded
in order to fill the gap in public discourse. since political democracy,
social justice and material equity have been major thrust of public
policy debates and contestations for long, ecology related issues were
relatively new introduction to public discourse in the region.
It is gratifying that the concept is gaining
currency, mostly in the civil society and engaged-academic world.
Ecological democracy and ecological justice are increasingly heard in
discussions, and in some writings (Agarwal, 2010; Shrivastava and
Kothari, 2012). Radical Ecological Democracy has been formally defined
and proposed as the path forward in a well received book by Aseem
Shrivastava and Ashish Kothari titled the ‘Churning the Earth: the
Making of Global India'. Discussions by the Siemenpuu Foundation on ED
have been referred to by environmental movement scholars (Sneddon and
Fox, 2008). We have so far addressed the activist communities and, as
their critical mass develops, we hope to device strategies of addressing
the lay community and making Ed part of common parlance as well.
However, the term ‘Ecological Democracy' can
be interpreted in multiple ways and hold different meanings. It can be
found in literature at least since the late 1990s, having been used in
relation to the term then gaining currency, ‘sustainability', or on how
states can espouse both liberal democratic structures and ecological
policies. Most of the literature on ED since then has attempted to
define how a nation state could be characterised as ‘an ecological
democracy' as against let's say ‘a liberal democracy' (Dietz, York and
Rosa, 2001; Mitchell, 2006; Whiteside and Bourg, 2006). “While few
scholars provide an explicit definition of ecological democracy, the
concept (or some variant) has been employed to illustrate the means by
which rapid ecological and environmental change pose significant
problems for existing democratic structures, and to prescribe
alternative decision-making processes that are more conducive to
ensuring ecological well-being” (Mitchell, 2006). By and large, this was
a state-centric view of ED. It relates to the political and economic
structures and policies that impact on the environment, but does not
spell out the social and cultural aspects underlying the human
relationship with nature.
The literature also acknowledges the need
for further refining of the concept of ED, but somehow, the term has not
got much attention relative to the rise of ‘sustainability'as a concept
(Mitchell, 2006). Countries sushi as Ecuador and Bolivia have addressed
the rights of nature in their constitutions and therey may qualify to
be termed ‘ecologicla democracies' in a sense. However, given the
contingencies of statecraft and prevailing political economy, the
economic policies even in these countries continue to go counter t the
requirements of sustaining natural environments. Thus the state-centric
view of Ed is found to be inadequate, but only diverse forms it have
been proposed in this literature.
Sustainability as it is now used, does not
always communicate the central ideas of either ecology, democracy or
equity. Sustainability, in dominant discourse, has become more about
‘economic growth with equity'i.e. more consumption for all, and ‘green
technologies'i.e. techno-managerial solutions that limit the
environmental impact of increasing consumption.
On the other hand, in the VK articulation of
‘Comprehensive Democracy', we viewed ED as one dimension of a
democratic ‘way of life', the other dimensions being ‘political
democracy', social democracy', ‘economic democracy' and ‘cultural
democracy' (Pratap et al, 2001). The limitations of our paradigms for
structuring society and its progressive urges, that were created in the
late 19 th and the 20 th century, the ideologies and traditions like
Marxism have run their course in their traditional form. Now a days
there is a global search for re-imagining and expanding the notion of
democracy to all dimensions of life and not just the separation of
organs of state and periodic elections and an independent judiciary.
This is just political democracy. Different sections of people are
fighting for their rights and hence are seeking different types of
democracy. Like Dalits are seeking social democracy to have an equal
status as to the Brahmins. Tribals for their rights are seeking cultural
democracy. Similarly people are seeking economic democracy so that
everybody gets a dignified livelihood engagement. So the first global
requirement is that we have to re-imagine and expand the notion of
democracy in such a way that it approximates the idea of life, flow of
life and all its dimensions, i.e. at all levels of society, form the
village to the global, should be democratic.An instance of
anti-democratic developments is that thetransnational corporations are
becoming stakeholders in organisations like WHO and ILO. This trend has
to be completely reversed. There is no other way out. This will only
happen through a global shared understanding. We need to have
intermittent global face to face global meets. WSF was a most creative
innovation of such meets. It was seeking to destroy the high priest
image of the academics and activists and making them equal to others in
society by destroying the activist and ordinary people divide. It was
seeking to approximate change actors and processes to the society and
the society ' s aspiration to transform itself to a better future. But
that idea has unfortunately run its course for a complex set of reasons.
One of them is that our progressive ideologies could not renew
themselves and the popular imaginations and promises they made to the
people in Latin America were not able to be upheld. So the conspiracies
of the right succeeded in Latin America, Brazil and other places. WSF
was born out of the larger upheaval of institutionalized
authoritarianism backed by the US in South America. But it played a big
role in bringing in the progressive regimes in place. Now the
limitations of the progressive ideologies has come to the fore, and we
need to reimagine our democracy in a manner that societies liberative
urges transform the society as a whole rather than making it a stagnant
society. So a paradigm shift in the transformative politics is in the
offing.
In the VK formulation of comprehensive
democracy, all dimensions are integrally bound and were separately
considered only for the ease of analysis and understanding. All
dimensions would have to contribute towards all the others so that each
of them would have to address issues of ED, just as Ed would have to
incorporate each of the others. For instance, agriculture for food
production impinges on the earth and generates a specific human-nature
relationship. Therefore, under the rubric of ED it must be undertaken in
ways that are least disruptive and most restorative of soil and water.
As economic democracy, there must also be a just distribution of the
resources of land and water that are needed for agriculture. Gender
relationships in the division of labor and its recognition in
agriculture would contribute to social democracy. State policies and
schemes that create such conditions would require political democracy.
Given the dynamicity of society and nature, all these together would
require ongoing processes of democratic dialogue and decision making
that can handle the power equations in each sphere and choose trade-offs
between competing priorities that would have to be negotiated. In order
to undo the limitations of ‘dialogue', non-violent individual and
collective assertions (satyagrah) are an integral part of democracy.
From this perspective then, ED can primarily
be viewed as a way of life that rests on a just relationship of human
beings with nature. If the emphasis is on ‘democracy' we could also see
it as an arrangement that supports ecological justice, i.e.e equal
access of all human beings to rights over natural resources, and equal
distribution of impacts of environmental degradation. However, either of
these alone is very simplistic and does not adequately address the
ground realities of real life contexts that include unbridled rising
aspirations for consumption of ‘relative' as against ‘basic' needs, the
implications of this for resources drawn from nature and the degradation
of nature, and the complex politics of overcoming inequalities in
situations of historical deprivations. If we see that neither the
emphasis on the ‘ecological' nor on ‘democracy' is complete without the
other and attempt to include both in our definition, we open ourselves
to the complex task of ‘deepening' the understanding of ED and how human
civilisation, and nation states within it in their present form, can
work towards achieving it. This is the challenge SADED set up for
itself.
The closest definition of ED to this understanding found in other writings is the following:
“An ecological democracy seeks a dynamic
balance between the ecosphere and humanity, and between and among
humans. An ecological democracy pursues sustainability in all aspects of
life. It constitutes not merely a political form, but a way,
with many potential expressions and manifestations……In an ecological
democracy, sustainability is not merely a biological process, but a
social force for healing humanity's excesses. Sustainability must be the
guide for dynamic interactions between humans and ecosphere, and the
political, economic and social interactions among humans. In particular,
this means economic growth results in ecological improvement, not
ecological destruction” (Morrison and Morrison, 2011).
Over the decades SADED's work has been able
to bring focus to the links between the various sectors of development
relating to environmental issues, such as the dependence of livelihoods
of the marginalised majorities on nature, the intimate relationship of adivasis
and their way of life with nature, the disruption of these through
dominant developmental interventions and the attempts to conserve or
restore these through civil society and social movements. It has, also
brought a greater understanding of the ground level issues and links of
environment, food security, health and health care into the ED
discussions. Thereby it has contributed to the popularisation of more
comprehensive understandings of the role of nature and of addressing
environmental concerns through social and political actions by state and
non-state actors. It has done this through various processes of
dialogue across sectors and actors, through development of and
participation in relevant networks, and engaging in public debate and
discussion at local, national and international levels.
Ecological Democracy and the SDGs
It is in this context that we see the
current adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the
global agenda for the coming decades as an opportunity to generate and
bring greater attention to dialogues around issues related to ED. Since
the SDGS stand on the three pillars of environmental integrity, social
justice and economic prosperity, they potentially approximate the idea
of Comprehensive Democracy. However, the SDGs, as articulated in the
official statement and in its dominant operationalisation, are not being
viewed adequately for their links with political and cultural
dimensions. We believe that without contextualising the SDGs in the
specific situation of each society from global to local levels, and
without integrally addressing the various environmental social,
economic, contexts together with their cultural and political
dimensions, these goals can not be attempted. Therefore, we contend that
ED will be helpful in understanding the pathways to Sustainable
Development and to moving towards the SDGs. We therefore propose to use
our work in the next phase to contextualising the SDGs in India and
other South Asian countries.
Ecological Swaraaj : a concept beyond Ecological Democracy
In our engagement with strivings on the
ground for ED, we have deepened our own understanding of what goes into
the making of ED. The challenges of making these links part of social
‘common sense' and thereby incorporated consciously into people's lives
and into state policies and programmes have become more evident. We
recognise that this requires a different collective ethical and moral
vision. Over the years, we have moved from using the concept ‘ED' to
Ecological Swaraaj', with ‘swaraaj' reflecting the sense that Gandhiji
gave it in the anti-colonial struggle. As we understand it, the term ES
expresses the deeper human strivings better than does ED. In ES, the
individual and the collective human spirit are closely intertwined. It
includes the community and the state as ever-enlarging concentric
circles of relationships and action. Thus it is not state-centric even
while it incorporates the role of the state in its societal vision. It
includes the moral dimension as individual conscience and spirituality
as well as collective ethics and norms. Its approach is to contribute to
empowering all peoples to practice ED with dignity.
It is with this deepening understanding that
SADED initiated its work on ‘Meaning of Life and Meaningful Life' and
developed strands of Health Swaraaj. In this move, besides concentrating
on the subjects directly related to natural environments (such as
agriculture, water, issues of adivasis, rights of informal sector
workers that constitute 90% of workers in India and other south Asian
countries, developmental and social issues of the Himalayas) we seek to
understand the human urges and resources of knowledge and practice that
can support democratic relationships with nature and between human
beings. We also attempt to explore the informal and institutionalised
resources of knowledge and practice that can be of help.
The Meaning of Life, Meaningful Life series
of lectures called upon leading persons of the ‘alternatives' among
civil society, social movements and political leadership to reflect on
inner human strivings and their relationship with nature and the human
collective. The series has been very well received by members of our
network and its larger ecology. The lectures have provided intellectual
and spiritual resources for ED activists to continue to address the very
great challenges that they face, especially the frustrations inherent
in such work. They have opened up areas of discussion in civili society
that were almost taboo in secular discourse, such as the spiritual
dimension of life, and the role of religions in furthering ED/ES. In the
future we propose to continue the series as and when appropriate
speakers become available.
Traditional Societal Institutions and their Potential Role in Deepening ED/ES
In the next phase we also propose to explore
the possibility of institutionalised forms of spiritual mooring and
knowledge generation, specifically religion and the various health
knowledge systems, for their contribution to further deepening the
understanding as well as spread of acceptability of the concepts of
ED/ES.
The recent encyclical of the Pope, that
re-examines the interpretation of the catholic church of the earth being
created for human beings and places human beings in the midst of nature
such that they are a part of it and responsible for it, is a valuable
resource for dialogue on ED through institutionalised religion that
influences large numbers across the globe. We plan to use it as the
basis for dialogue with leaders of all religions in our region to make
their statements on how they view the relationship between human beings
and nature. Fro this we plan to have a platform for inter-faith dialogue
called the ‘Dharm Jigyasu Manch' (Inter-Faith Forum for Critical
Dialogue).
Traditional health knowledge systems also
have a whole philosophy of human life and its relationship with nature
and with different elements of society, that affect each ones physical,
mental and spiritual state. We hope to engage more with these knowledge
systems to understand how they can help in deepening the understanding
of ED/ES.
The proposed activities under each of these
that we propose for the coming two years are given in detail in the
application and the annexed log frame.
Ritu Priya
March 2017
Hony. Convenor SADED
No comments:
Post a Comment